


Logbook

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Awkward Crush, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship/Love, Tragic Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:20:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Pidge always had a knack for keeping track of the days that passed from any important event in her life. Mentally, she'd kept a log of the days from the first time she met Lance, without even meaning or wanting to. Maybe the reason why she remembered those days so well took a while to appear to her, but when it did she was glad to have them.





	Logbook

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request that I was very liberal with interpreting. Hopefully it's somewhat enjoyable anyways. It definitely could use some work, but for now I'm too tired to wrestle with it any longer.

**Day 1. Impressions**

 

She didn’t like this guy at all.

 

Not that it mattered. They were only going to work together as much as was necessary to pass their flight simulation class, and that was that. At least his friend didn’t seem nearly as obnoxious. This Lance guy, on the other hand… though Katie had placed dummy lenses into Matt’s glasses that made things slightly blurry at a certain distance simply by messing with light refraction, she could see his bright blue eyes darting between her and surreptitious glances at every passing girl. _Every passing girl that_ looks _like a girl, anyways._

 

He bought into the “Pidge” persona easily, which was a relief. Already he was trying to convince her he was some kind of Casanova, talking to her like she was one of the guys. Hunk meekly smiled at her like a silent apology- he must be used to this.

 

A brusque excuse was enough to brush him off. Katie couldn’t wait until the semester was done and she’d hopefully have done well enough to be assigned to a new team with a less annoying wannabe fighter pilot.

 

**Day 8. Distraction**

 

Pidge brushed the hair out of her eyes, taking advantage of her momentary privacy to pore over what data she’d been able to collect at the Garrison that day. It wasn’t easy, since security had apparently tightened since her escapade the year before. But nonetheless she’d managed to get past some of the encryptions to the trial flight data from the months preceding the Kerberos mission… which disappointingly didn’t lead to anything interesting, since there wasn’t any evidence of problems with the operation of the shuttle or potential sources of communications breakdown. Tomorrow she might be able to look deeper into-

 

“Hey, Pidge!”

 

Instinctually slamming her laptop shut, Pidge (she was getting really used to that name now- maybe more than her actual name) looked up to see that a very wound-up Lance had come into their shared room, finally, at two in the morning.

 

“Shh!” Hunk stage-whispered before rolling back over and covering his head with a pillow.

 

“Sorry,” Lance quickly added in a slightly lower voice. The stupid grin on his face didn’t disappear.

 

Pidge blearily glared at Lance, who didn’t seem to understand what he was doing wrong.

 

“Where the hell were you? It’s four hours past curfew.” She kept her voice low, feeling even more sorry for Hunk than she did before since he’d had to room with this guy in the past. 

 

“I, uh, lost track of time,” Lance said, sounding surprisingly proud of himself. From the way he was posturing with his hands on his hips, it was pretty obvious he wanted Pidge to pry.

 

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Pidge sighed. “Doing what?”

 

Lance’s smile grew. “We _eee_ ll, Tia from team eight wanted _my_ help sneaking out the window! Am I a ladies’ man or what?”

 

Pidge didn’t feel bad for what she was about to do, considering he’d interrupted her late-night cryptography so rudely. “You realize she has a boyfriend in the building across from us, right?”

 

Lance’s smile wavered somewhat. “She… does?”

 

“And that she might want help getting out the window so she can go _meet him?”_

 

It was almost funny to see the expression on Lance’s face. “…Oh.”

 

Pidge smirked. Maybe that’d dampen his ego, at least for a little while.

 

**Day 32. Exeunt**

 

The day they’d come to Arus and met Princess Allura and Coran, a _lot_ of crazy shit had happened.

 

For starters, apparently Shiro was alive- which meant Matt and Dad probably were, too.

 

And aliens existed. Not just existed- a race of them were rapidly encroaching on conquest of the entire universe. Cool. She’d have to help stop them by piloting a robotic Lion? Okay, sure. As long as it got her closer to finding her family, that was fine.

 

It meant she’d have to learn to work alongside her fellow kidnappees, at least until she figures out where to go next. Hunk wasn’t a huge pain to work with, even if she wasn’t totally confident he could handle piloting without puking. Shiro obviously had the skills he needed, and as much as a jerkass as Keith was he undoubtedly knew how to fly. She could handle them fine. But did Lance have it in him to take this seriously? Pidge wasn’t sure.

 

Even now, he found it in him to flirt with a ten-thousand-year-old alien princess- _Christ._

 

Pidge rubbed her eyes tiredly. The sooner it was over, the better.

 

 

 

**Day 77. Acceptance**

 

“Hey- Pidge.” Lance walked into her room like it was his own, but Pidge didn’t bother complaining. Lance just didn’t have a sense of boundaries like a normal person.

 

Besides, Pidge kind of wanted some company. 

 

“What do you want, Lance?”

 

“Well…” Lance scratched the back of his head nervously, which was out of the norm for him. Usually he at least put on the airs of cocky confidence around her. “…I could use some advice from a girl, so…”

 

Pidge furrowed her eyebrows. “And you’re asking me? I mean… I guess that works, but… somehow I think you’d be better off asking Allura.”

 

“That’s the thing!” Lance said in an unusually high voice. “I need your advice _because_ of Allura!”

 

“…Oh.” Pidge felt her stomach sink. Maybe it was the way her mind was wired to have an aversion to the trivialities of romance, because she _hated_ listening to Lance’s complaints about girls and why the ones he liked didn’t like him back. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as before, when she’d first met him- but that part of his personality hadn’t changed.

 

Lance didn’t seem to notice the change in Pidge’s expression, since he continued talking. “I mean, I know I’m not a _Prince_ or anything, but there’s gotta be other stuff Princesses go for- stuff girls like that I could do.”

 

“Have you considered plastic surgery for your ears?” Pidge deadpanned, already regretting not kicking Lance out the moment he stepped in.

 

Lance pouted, tugging on his earlobes. “I mean, yeah. If I knew who to ask…” His eyes lit up. “Hey, maybe you can build a machine that-“

 

“I was joking!” Pidge tried not to sound too aggravated, but she did _not_ have the time to humour Lance’s dumb lovesick routine today. “Look- if you want to impress Allura so much, maybe get better at your actual _job?”_

 

Frowning and folding his arms, Lance looked like a grumpy kid. “But there’s nothing romantic about that.”

 

“ _But_ it’s the one thing she actually _wants_ from you. Besides,” Pidge looked over Lance, apparently deep in thought about how to pilot a lion _romantically._ “Girls don’t like a useless guy.”

 

Lance scoffed. “Are you seriously calling me useless? I’m a great pilot already! What more can I do?”

 

Pidge shrugged. “Well, you asked. I answered. You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to.”

 

Grumbling, Lance opened the door and began to exit. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

 

Pidge made a noncommittal mumble in response, returning her attention to the electronics splayed before her on her bed. She heard the door shut and exhaled, suddenly feeling very tired.

 

_Talking to Lance always wears me out,_ Pidge silently examined. _So why the hell do I enjoy it?_

 

 

She figured it was her inner scientist that wanted to figure Lance out for the sake of curiosity, and left it at that.

 

 

**Day 121. Friends**

 

She let him keep her precious gaming console in _his room,_ she told herself, because she couldn’t afford to waste the space in her own, with all the projects she already had cluttering it up. Not because he’d begged her to let him keep it and practice overnight.

 

Well, she’d admit that it made her happy when he told her that he _needed_ it around to practice if he was going to stand any chance of beating her. At least he knew how to flatter her.

 

They’d become comfortable around one another, not just forced teammates any longer, but actual friends. 

 

It was nice to be friends with Lance for real. Sure, she still ragged on him and gave him shit when he got out of hand. But his stupid antics and dumb questions didn’t really bother her anymore. It’d be nice if he could stop flirting with _every female-looking alien they met,_ but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

 

She sat adjacent to Lance in front of the ancient-looking television, trying to help him figure out how the fighting system worked, and that mashing buttons alone wasn’t doing him any favours.

 

“You know there’s an actual algorithm working here, right?” She muttered, watching as Lance’s character was defeated for the twelfth time. “There’s a reason there’s different attack combos. You can’t just keep slamming the controller and hoping for the best.”

 

Lance made an aggravated pout. “But his am I supposed to remember, like, a zillion combos? Is this game made for geniuses only? It’s not fair!”

 

Pidge grabbed the controller out of his hands. “Look, just watch me for a round. There’s only a handful of combos and power-ups you really need to know to beat this boss. The rest is timing. It’s really not that hard.”

 

“For you, maybe.” Lance muttered, folding his arms. “If you’re a tech genius.”

 

Pidge glared at him. “ do you want to beat this stage or not? I could be working on something actually useful right now, you know.”

 

“Okay, okay! I’m watching.”

 

Their banter always made Pidge feel more at home, and it didn’t hurt that Lance kept calling her smart, or a genius, or whatever. Still, she kind of wished he’d tell her she looked nice the way he did for literally every other girl. Just sometimes.

 

 

 

**Day 197. Something**

 

It was time for Pidge to face the facts. Sometimes the facts were very, very inconvenient, and you don’t want to accept them at all- but they _are_ facts, whether or not you accepted them.

 

And the fact was, she sort of had some kind of crush on Lance.

 

Maybe more than just a crush.

 

Just letting that thought into her conscious mind made her shiver. This was the last thing she needed right now.

 

Maybe it was the heroic, protective, mature side of himself he’d begun to show in battle. Maybe it was the way he always knew how to lighten the mood, and when to be serious. But Pidge had to be honest with herself. This was more than respect for a teammate or affection for a friend.

It made her kind of nauseous just to entertain the idea. It was the _last_ thing she needed right now, but it had already crept up on her long before she had realized that maybe her irritation with his flirting was jealousy, her excuses to spend time with him were more than friendly or for the sake of team-building.

 

“Sure wish I could reprogram my brain,” Pidge grumbled into her pillow. That this was happening was bad enough, but why did it have to keep her up at night, too?

 

 

 

**Day 266. Nothing**

 

 

Why did she have to let that _stupid_ thought into her mind?

 

Watching Lance flirt with Allura had always been annoying, but not for the same reasons. And now- now it seemed like she was beginning to reciprocate.

 

It shouldn’t bother her. Rationally, she knew that. But it _did,_ and there wasn’t anything that she could do about it.

 

Allura was the kind of girl Lance was after, anyways- not her. It could never be her. And she’d never cared that she wasn’t as pretty or graceful or poised as Allura before, but-

 

These weren’t rational thoughts, and there was no way to selectively delete them. Sitting alone in the darkness of her room, Pidge angrily wiped her eyes dry and threw her screwdriver at the wall. She couldn’t distract herself with real, practical work- something she could actually _make progress on._ This stupid crush thing was making her act weird around Lance, around Allura. It made her less able to focus on all the things she _should_ be focused on. She _hated_ it.

 

 

 

**Day 397. Anniversary**

 

 

“We’ve been out here for a whole year,” Lance mused, breaking the silence of their early-morning vigil. They’d made a habit of getting up early (or sometimes, just staying up _way_ too late) to enjoy the silence and the view of the cosmos together, something Pidge never would have expected Lance to enjoy. But as she’d gotten to know him better, there had been a lot of surprises.

 

He frowned a little, gazing off into the stars. “I mean... that means we’re all a year older. I’m technically an adult now and I never even had time to notice. I wonder... I wonder how much time has _really_ passed, back home, I mean. For our families and everyone else.”

 

Still, Pidge couldn’t predict what had brought on this train of thought. Lance had never been the most observant of details or keeping track of what’s going on. She leaned back and looked at his profile in the dark- she almost wanted to crack a joke at how ridiculous he looked when he was being serious, but it didn’t seem like the right time.

 

“Well...” she searched for the right words, a quick explanation that’d stop his concerns, but she couldn’t think of one. She herself didn’t know how time had been passing for them relative to Earth, what year her father would land in, if he had managed to get back at all...

 

“I don’t know,” she murmured at last, tucking her knees into her chest and resting her chin on them. “ I don’t wanna think about it.” She used to feel weird sharing her feelings around Lance, but since they’d become friends she’d shared a lot of her fears and insecurities with her. He was a good listener, and behind all his fake bravado, he was really supportive. It was times like these that she was glad she’d learned to let him in.

 

Lance sighed and stretched outwards, leaning towards Pidge. She didn’t mind him bring close to her the way she used to- in fact, she’d started to like his physical presence near her. It was comfortable, natural. She leaned onto his shoulder and let him wrap an arm around her, both of them looking for an anchor of home in the other. Her heartbeat rose and she desperately hoped that her feelings wouldn’t become obvious through her body language. She wondered what would happen to their friendship if she let her feelings through- chances were it’d all blow up in her face. She couldn’t have that easy closeness with Lance anymore.

 

Noticing her tensening, Lance looked at her with a little concern. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah,” she lied. “Just thinking about stuff. Earth and my family and everything.”

 

He hummed in affirmation, not shifting away from her. “It’s gonna be okay. I just know it.”

 

Pidge stifled a snort. She could think of a couple of things that definitely _wouldn’t_ be. “Whatever. I just hope we get home by next year.”

 

 

**Day 408. Maybe**

 

“If you worry too much about what could go wrong, you might miss the chance to do something great.”

 

When her father had told her that so long ago, he probably hadn’t realized that it would permanently engrain in her mental circuitry. But his words kept coming back to her. After all the chances she took against the odds sneaking back into the Garrison under a new name, going off into space to find him and her brother, countless risk taken for the greater good of the universe-

 

And maybe some stupid, personal details, too.

 

Maybe she’d stop thinking about her feeling about Lance and wasting her time imagining all the ways it could never work out, and actually do something about it.

 

She resolved that she’d try. It’d take a lot of careful planning- like everything in her life. She couldn’t just take his approach and spill all her feelings onto the floor for everyone to see. 

 

But she could open the door to her heart in front of him, just a crack. Maybe he’d pull the handle and enter.

 

Just maybe.

 

 

**Day 431. Goodbye**

 

“You fucking _idiot, you can’t-“_

 

He smiled in his usual stupid, out-of-place way- without regard for consequences. He breathed fear, but his eyes were full of fire and resolution.

 

“It’s the only thing that’s actually gonna work, and you know it.”

 

The two Paladins were alone amongst enemies on the reserve ship, casketed in uncountable quantities of all manner of quintessence weapons. They were supposed to be able to remotely defuse it once they’d planted the correct corrupting lines in the security framework, make quick work of the ship. But now they’d found themselves cornered by dozens of heavily armed sentries ready to rip them to shreds. Their bayards had been lost in the fray, and both were injured- things weren’t looking good.

 

The one possible route out of this was for one to hold them back with the other- meaning, the one actually _capable_ of hacking the defence systems- went ahead. It was unlikely that the one left behind would survive.

 

Pidge’s eyes hyper-focused on his, looking for some hint of doubt or a plausible way to deny what he was saying, call him a moron and point out a better way. But there wasn’t any- one of them had to do it, and it had to be him. Looking at him, it was obvious Lance was terrified. He was accepting a death sentence so that Pidge could survive and return to fight another day. But he was still half-smiling, for her sake.

 

“Please,” she said quietly, her voice starting to choke. “Come on, Lance, you just…” 

 

He wiped away a tear that had rolled down to her chin without her even noticing.

 

“It’s okay. I mean, it had to happen eventually.” His voice was still so… conversational. “We’re in a war. There’s got to be sacrifices.”

 

Pidge couldn’t think of anything to say back to that. He was _accepting_ this. 

 

They didn’t have much longer before they’d be found, and when they were, Lance was prepared to do what he had to to protect her, to do his job and win the war and give all he could. The lump in Pidge’s throat dissolved and she spoke without thinking, her voice hoarse and quiet.

 

“I love you.”

 

Lance looked surprised, maybe even shocked. “Are you-?”

 

Pidge grabbed him and held him close. It’d be the last time, despite what she wanted to believe she knew that much. There wasn’t anything left to lose. She didn’t have the luxury of time or energy to break down, but he must’ve been able to tell that she really meant it, by the way he tentatively tightened his own arms around her waist.

 

Maybe ninety seconds to go. She wanted to make everything stop. She wanted to keep holding him like she could keep the entire universe steady and break out of this Hell together. Their faces were held apart by the fronts of their helmets clinking together, but to Pidge’s surprise he found a way to press his lips to hers, anyways. Warmth and light in the coldest and darkest of places.

 

Sixty seconds, plus or minus five. When he pulled away he still had that stupid, sad smile on. “I wish you told me earlier. This is a really shitty first date.”

 

She almost laughed. He really couldn’t cut it out for a second-

 

“Now go,” he whispered, urgently. He pulled her up to her feet, holding onto her hands a moment longer, long enough for Pidge to feel the way he was trembling. “We can do this.”

 

Pidge couldn’t come up with the words to reply, not fast enough. He’d already begun charging at the sentries, and her mind disconnected from her body as she mechanically went through the motions she’d rehearsed in her head a thousand times in the last five minutes. Duck, weave, run, don’t stop running, don’t ask what that noise was, _don’t look back-_

 

As she made it to the relative safety of the other side she made the mistake of one last glance backwards, the image burning into her mind for every night spent awake afterwards. She couldn’t stop herself from crying out, running onwards like a coward, disobeying the weakness in every muscle and the burning of a thousand cuts.

 

She couldn’t really remember what happened afterwards, when she reported back to the team, alone. All she knew is she must’ve succeeded, since the base that gone up in an explosion consuming kilometres in every direction, sending shrapnel out into the void. Nobody blamed her, even suggested anything like it, but they didn’t need to. Pidge felt a weight form in the pit of her stomach that would never leave.

 

 

 

 

**Day 1,283. Shell**

 

Pidge’s three remaining right-hand fingers curled around the handle on the casket. With the help of her surviving teammates, it wasn’t as heavy as it looked. 

 

The entire thing was symbolic; there wasn’t any body or any remains, not for any of the ones they’d lost. Even Shiro- who’d left _something_ behind when he died- couldn’t be taken back home, since they’d had to escape so quickly.

 

Biting her lip, Pidge silently cursed whatever higher power had brought them here. Allura carried her end with the stoicism of a royal, her feelings buried beneath a perfectly sculpted icon of hope for those who remained after the war. Pidge knew well enough that it wasn’t what she wanted to show, but feelings were a privilege for her on the best of days. It only made her angrier at herself for reserving any tenderness she could’ve shown the ones she’d lost when she was so much more able to.

 

Earth was safe. The venue was crowded from all sides by thousands, but friends and family were allowed close enough to see less than a spectacle of the righteous sacrifice of war- to see the lines etched into the faces of those who had returned from the hands of death.

 

Pidge snuck a look at Lance’s family- somehow, they didn’t look entirely miserable. Maybe they’d already spilled over with so much grief in the preceding weeks that there was nothing left to let out. But their faces suggested that they had found peace with the loss. Could they still have had that same faith in God, the same sense of resolution, if they’d seen the way he’d gone-?

 

She’d never tell them the details. All they knew was that he’d made a heroic sacrifice, defended the universe and all he loved within it until his last breath. She’d never taint that memory for them with the hideous black marks of reality.

 

Across from her, carrying the casket into the pit lined with lilies before them, like a well-disguised mouth into hell- her former teammate. Though they walked in step side-by-side, they hadn’t talked for weeks. That was just too hard. His face was less than neutral; it was a void. In the uniform he’d detested from the moment he inherited, the Black Paladin put on the stride of a leader- but Keith was a shell.

 

Katie wondered if she looked the same from the other side.

 

 

**Day 2,327: Memory**

 

She didn’t care if she looked somewhat disrespectful leaving a milkshake at the pretend grave of her teammate.

 

Honestly, she knew it would’ve given Lance a laugh. He never took serious things seriously enough.

 

Closing her eyes and kneeling by the granite slab, Katie closed her eyes, let the warm and humid tropical wind blow her hair in all directions. She focused on the memory of him for a few minutes. She could almost feel him standing beside her, a strangely warm shiver washing over her chest. She wondered if she’d ever really move on or feel that same way about someone else. Rationally, she expected she would. But even after all those years she had yet to let go of him completely.

 

That was okay. She didn’t really want to feel that vulnerability or weakness for anyone else. Once was more than enough for a lifetime.

 

Still, she wondered what could’ve been if he’d survived. Would they have…?

 

Katie shook away the thought. It was selfish. She’d come here to honour Lance’s memory, not wallow in old feelings. But those feelings somehow felt as new and green as the sprouting flowers Lance’s mother had planted on the patch a few weeks prior.

 

This was one of the few places that Katie would allow herself to cry. She was glad nobody was around to see- grief made her angry, made her act out. The last thing anyone needed was to see how damaged Earth’s saviours had been left by their journey.

 

“I love you,” she finally whispered, tracing his name carved into stone with her finger. “I guess I always will.”

 

His memory hurt, but it was less like a ghost haunting her and more like a beam of light that shone on her in the dark, kept her warm. She’d keep him close for the rest of her life.


End file.
